KEEPON TICKING
Quirky Amazon revival for the blue man regroup
‘THE Tick” is back in the nick of time.
The big, blue-costumed crime fighter — whose idealistic actions poke fun at superhero tropes — was last seen on a short-lived 2001 Fox series starring Patrick Warburton and makes his grand entrance amid a surfeit of big-screen (“Justice League”) and small-screen crusaders (“The Defenders”).
“I started to get the feeling that this level of superhero saturation was almost calling ‘The Tick’ back into service,” creator Ben Edlund tells The Post by phone from LA. “It landed at a time when there is enough going on globally to trade on.”
The character was originally conceived in 1986 simply as a mascot for a New England comics store. Two years later it spun into a series of comic books, in which The Tick fights crime with the help of his reluctant sidekick Arthur, a timid accountant whose costume includes white leotards, goggles and moth-like wings. The Tick then became a cult-favorite Saturday morning cartoon — the lead voiced in booming baritone by Townsend Coleman — on Fox from 1994-96.
For the new series, Edlund cast Peter Serafinowicz, a 6-foot-5 British comic with “all these genetic gifts you’re looking for in one person — immense height, comedic brilliance and a certain graphic look that lends itself to a super hero presentation.”
Warburton helped Edlund sell the pilot to Amazon and initially seemed an obvious choice for the lead role. But Edlund says it would be “sort of confusing” to not start with a clean slate. Warburton maintains a producer title and Edlund hopes to give him an on-camera role down the road. And Coleman, The Tick’s cartoon voice, will play a villain named Midnight in the second half of the season. (The first six episodes will stream Friday, with six more in early 2018.) The retooling includes a significant new back story about Arthur (played by Griffin Newman) and his pursuit of a villain called The Terror (Jackie Earle Haley), who killed Arthur’s favorite super heroes in battle — as well as his father in the process — when he was a boy.
The Tick remains an overachiever with a penchant for theatrics, such as yelling “Stop your evil ways!” at criminals. “The Tick is a goofy, dumb, lovable guy who wants to do the right thing,” Edlund says. But he also tends to overreact, throttling foes when confronted.
“Talk about great power and great responsibility and not so much the parliamentary process and due process of law,” Edlund says, laughing, referencing an iconic line from “Spider-Man” movies. “The Tick is an unsolved equation between love and might in the might-makes-right kind of thing.”
Even with The Tick’s renewed visibility, Edlund still marvels at the 31-year-old character’s evolution and staying power.
“It’s amazing in terms of what makes an idea go from just a fleeting thing to a freestanding wave,” he says. “The people want to see the jester doing a kind of interpretive dance in the superhero court.”
SERIES PREMIERE “The Tick” Available Friday on Amazon